


Deconstruction

by Slumber



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Character Study, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-01
Updated: 2005-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-11 15:41:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/480127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slumber/pseuds/Slumber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The trick to having, he is told, is not wanting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deconstruction

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is, what appears to be another paper crane. For [](http://fanfic100.livejournal.com/profile)[**fanfic100**](http://fanfic100.livejournal.com/), for the prompt **Lovers**.

The trick to having, he is told, is not wanting. He is lying in a single bed, plain cotton sheets sticking to too-sweaty skin, lungs just a little damaged from the stink of second-hand cigarette smoke. In the dim light of the room he can make out the silhouettes of almost-empty bottles of whisky and beer, a few of them knocked over and leaking a thin trail of alcohol that would leave a stain for the next occupants to ignore. He can see where his shirt had been kicked to, right beside the shattered painting of a bowl of fruit—the new vogue, Still Pictures—that had been shaken out of its hook in the wall when his back hit it.

“I wanted you,” he lies. God, the smoke stung—he’d hardly been able to keep from coughing, and if he’d known he’d be sleeping with a chain smoker he’d have found someone else.

There is a smile—shining in the dark, and he wonders how they’d look years from now, yellowed and nicotined—a sigh of gratitude from the bed springs as one of them stands up, and the zipping of trousers. “I didn’t.”

He rolls his eyes and kicks the sheets until they bunch at the foot of the bed, and cool air soothes his legs. “It’s a half-baked point,” he points out, intent on being contrary, swinging his legs to the other side of the bed and sitting up with his back turned. Another cigarette is already lit.

“There is no point, kid. I’m leaving half the pay with Rosie,” is all he hears, and he shrugs in reply, more keen on hunting around for his pants.

The man must have been carrying extra packs, because one is left behind. There are three sticks in it. He takes one out, lighting it and placing it between his mouth, angling it so it juts out from the corner, like he’s seen them do, and he breathes the smoke in. It’ll get to him eventually anyway.

***

It’s like this. His parents are away and he’s left behind. He’s not allowed to go out since the last time he did and did not come home until the next day, reeking of alcohol and cigarettes and missing a sock.

The draft in their dorms is brutal, nipping and biting until he’s sure sooner or later his fingers will just fall off and he’ll be kneeling on the floor, wondering how to pick them up again. He’s to keep himself amused, but he’d rather be bundled up. Their fireplace is never hot enough, and he never wears enough clothes. Too many clothes make him look fat, anyway.

There’s hot apple cider in the main hall and snowball fights out on the field, lights line the halls at dinner and leftover students avoid the mistletoes pretending they don’t like to be kissed. Their eyes linger for a split-moment longer on the mistletoes, though, traitorous and virginal.

The trick to getting, someone repeats in his head, is not wanting. Don’t want it enough, and the world will beg to be had.

***

It is better like this, under three different blankets in front of the fireplace in the middle of the night, warm breath thawing the crook of his neck, his back protected by the carpeted floor and his chest shielded by the draped-over body of a sleeping boy.

Warmer, now, but not quite. He wishes he had a cigarette.

Lashes sigh fluttering against his skin, and for a moment a sliver of winter air sneaks in under the blankets to streak an icy line down his spine, tingling past his legs to his toes.

He really wants a cigarette.

He sighs and the carpeting bristles against him, a flutter and two against his skin and there’s a soft mumbling from his neck, a leg brushes up against his thigh and a hand travels down his chest. “Good morning to you too,” he says, nudging himself up on his elbow and reaching over for his pants.

“Wh’time is it?” comes the sleep-lined response.

He tugs his trousers up, pulling up the zip, turns to look at mussed up blond hair, the back of tanned and talented hands rubbing against half-closed eyes. “Got a fag with you?”

“I don’t smoke.”

He’s already on his way out the door. “I thought as much.”

***

Satin-silk melds into his hand so he presses it against the small of her back, twirling her and spinning her around and around and eyes following the folds of her skirt to the flawless skin peeking up from where the fabric lifted into the air.

She doesn’t stop talking, low alto voice heavily accented with disgust and complaints and nothing and he tucks an imaginary strand of hair behind her ear to distract himself.

“Do you want to go out of here?” he asks, stopping her mid-sentence.

“But it is freezing,” she protests.

He is already standing up, placing his coat over her bare shoulders. “Exactly.”

She frowns and it’s another imperfection on her doll-like face. “Are you even listening to what I’m saying?”

“Yes, to every word,” he replies, and it’s the truth so she takes his proffered hand and lets him lead her out to dark gardens behind trees no one would think to look.

If he didn’t listen, he might end up really wanting her.

***

The funny thing with rules is this: it’s a three-dimensional polygon. There’s always more than one side to them. Corollaries. Postulates. A’s and b’s and bullet points under. Loopholes. And even then, there are exceptions.

“I beg your pardon?” The sun is bright and beaming, he squints at the sky and he’s sure he heard her wrong. Her head is bowed low and away from him and the wind could have carried her yes away, like it was doing to his breath just a few minutes ago, before he’d called training over.

“No, thank you, but I can’t. It wouldn’t be right.” She’s the one who turns her back to him, long ponytailed black hair limp against her back.

There are external factors, like dead boyfriends and pining young heroes to feel sorry for and keeping things professional, which is thrown in as an afterthought. They aren’t even professionals, but it doesn’t matter, and he thinks, that’s a corollary in itself. In case you can’t have what you don’t want, so what? You never wanted it.

He shrugs and doesn’t watch her walk away. He strips off his uniform and scrubs himself clean in the showers, so when he passes by, a girl with curly dark hair resting until just above her shoulders can pretend it’s the clean smell of his soap that turns her head, that it’s the little drops of water hanging at the end of his hair just waiting to run down the nape of his neck that her eyes follow. That she’s startled when he turns to look, that she blushes of embarrassment when he catches her eye.

He’ll let her grieve, she can cry in bathroom stalls, face hidden by her hair and eyes smudged red. In the meantime, he’ll run his hands through curls and up skin left pale by the sun’s neglect.

The other corollary is this: the rule reverses itself, in order to right itself, one way or another. You just have to be careful.

***

Come here often is a stupid line. I’ve tasted better at home is only a relative improvement, but it needs the proper context, which means a half-empty glass of cheap alcohol in a student-filled bar under the influence of boredom. And a pretty face.

Pretty faces can get away with anything, and this boy, he’s getting away with being pulled through busy streets, up flights of stairs and through private rooms to which he’d otherwise not been allowed. You forgive pretty faces anything—the bad lines, the coy faces you can see right through, their inexperience. This boy, even before he holds on with clammy palms, even before he bucks under him like a horse in an attempt to seduce, is already absolved, even found endearing.

“You tore my shirt,” is what replaces ‘That was brilliant’ or ‘Wow’.

Forgiven, forgotten.

“You can borrow one of mine,” he says, instead of ‘See you around’ or ‘Do you mind, I need to take a bath now’.

He watches his white shirt pulled over a small frame, hanging loose and droopy over slender—because skinny is hardly pretty—shoulders. Self-conscious green eyes look up, fingers fumbling over buttons.

“What?”

“Do you smoke?”

There’s a flash of uncertainty. “Yes?”

He tosses him the rest of his clothes, the ones that aren’t ripped in places. “You shouldn’t, they’ll make your teeth yellow.”

Because for pretty faces, you make exceptions.

***

Puckered red lips formed into a perfect pout, slinky red dress clinging to smooth, remedied curved-just-right skin, heels so thin and sharp they can kill. Legs so long they wrap around his waist two times over. It’s an image so distinct it’s seen everywhere.

“When will you call?” Lines so profound they’re echoed through time.

His answer is not an answer but a delaying tactic, giving him time to find where he’d lost his tie, where his other shoe has gone to hide. “When I’ve time. You’ll know.”

“Baby, why do you break all the rules on me?” Red lingerie stopping short of her thighs, red nails on his chest but lingering further down, unforgivably not enticing. Best-selling blonde curls framing her face. And the pout, the perfect pout that’s just waiting for a camera somewhere to photograph it.

He doesn’t kiss her like she’s expecting him to. Like she wants her to. “That’s funny,” is all he says, before he steps out, “I’m doing nothing but following them.”

***

The second time he’s told no, he doesn’t ask it to be repeated. He’s sure it means only until my boyfriend’s out of earshot. When he’s not paying attention, when we’re having problems. When I want to make him jealous.

No is only short for not now.

Some bloke who never got laid enough, he said it’s wanting what you have that’s the problem*. He doesn’t care about wanting, but he’s enjoying it, here in this darkened corner, illuminated in part by strobe lights reflecting off the lowered head of a blond angel. He rests his head against the wall, smirks a little, groans a little, and he says, “The bloke was bitter.”

Blond head perks up, tongue licking lips and so far away from where they’re meant to be. “What was that?”

“Nothing. Keep going.”

And this angel—who ten minutes ago slid lithely up against him, pressing against the right places and who thought he’d get a free drink and play coy, who said you’ll have to do better than that but kissed him seven sentences later, this angel who played hard to get—this angel obeys him and keeps going.

No has an average life of one day.

It’s no until I get a drink. Until you pout at me, until you start to walk away. Until you change my mind, and how do you plan to do that? Refusals are only good for as long as the temptation can be resisted, until it goes away, and the fastest way to make it go away is to yield to it**. That’s the secret behind the no. Eventually it evolves, if you wait long enough, because long enough usually means soon, or else it isn’t worth it.

He never waits for long, never very long until he can say “Point proven,” and this angel, who pretends to refuse, who is coy only for so long, he agrees.

This no, this second one, he’s sure it isn’t real. So he waits a little longer. More than a day. Over a few weeks. A few months. When the boyfriend’s out of earshot. When they’re having problems. When he wants to make him jealous. Even then, he keeps waiting.

Because for pretty faces, you make exceptions.

***

The trick is to be careful. The trick is to be indifferent. Knowledge is all well and good, but somebody eventually screws up the application. Most people do. He’s lucky he got so far, that he got as far as whittling the stubborn no to okay, we can have dinner. “Are you paying?” is added, and it’s almost like you’ll have to try harder than that, so he begins counting the sentences.

The seventh one is this: “Is the salmon any good?”

The trick is to have enough sense not to count goddamn sentences in your head. The trick is in the context, under flashing lights, several double shots, noise pretending to be music. A few more shots. And a pretty face whose name you forget to ask.

Almost everyone eventually screws up the application.

“You know what people want the most?” he asks, shouting to be heard.

There’s no uncertainty this time around, only a mild sense of curiosity he gets away with. “I suspect you’re about to tell me.”

The trick is to look through, to always look through, never at. He knows it, and he’s finally the somebody screwing up the application. “It’s what they can’t have.”

 

FIN

 

* Adapted from the quote of Geoffrey F. Abert: “Prosperity depends more on wanting what you have than having what you want.”  
** Adapted from the quote of Oscar Wilde: “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.”

And in order of appearance: OMC, Cedric, Fleur, Cho & OFC, Blaise, OFC, Justin, Blaise


End file.
